The Upheaval - Proposed changes to the BN/QAT

GaterRaider wrote:

An upheaval to me would require that the blatant favoritism amongst BNs is addressed. Quick bubbles are passed around as favors that will be returned in the future in some way or the other. I am not going to name people but public cases of this are well recorded and should be no surprise to anyone. I don't even want to know how bad this truly is when you are an insider that has access to these advantages.

The problem is that nominators are naturally mappers and have a lot of influence in the ranking process. This creates an obvious incentive for favoritism to help each other out with their own maps. When those who are in charge of running the system are actively participating in it as individuals themselves then there are going to be problems.

Connections are too big of a driver in the current ranking process. Those with access to the people in charge are highly advantaged compared to those that do not. When getting hold of a BN is incredibly frustrating for some, while others can simply post a short message in a private discord server to get things rolling quickly I do not consider it a fair system.

That may be true in the most part, but BNs are experienced mappers. We can't tell apart from what is made from connections and honest actions, I agree that we should also stop this from happening as it seems unfair with the majority of the mapping community. Monetary rewards such as supporter is enough for incentives.

What this needs to be addressed is to make a rule (if this does so happen and if this will ever so happen) to prevent this from happening. Things such has "icon for icon" should be discouraged as it is unfair already as BNs/QATs already bypass what we regular members have to go through (for example the modding queues). Suspicious activity should be discouraged and even be punished by doing so.

Some BNs may choose to indirectly help a mapper because of favoritism while the mapper he so chooses to help doesn't know it. There should be a lock to prevent a specific BN iconing one mapper's maps. This can't fully stop but at least prevent the idea of speedranking in such a way too.

GaterRaider wrote:

An upheaval to me would require that the blatant favoritism amongst BNs is addressed. Quick bubbles are passed around as favors that will be returned in the future in some way or the other. I am not going to name people but public cases of this are well recorded and should be no surprise to anyone. I don't even want to know how bad this truly is when you are an insider that has access to these advantages.

The problem is that nominators are naturally mappers and have a lot of influence in the ranking process. This creates an obvious incentive for favoritism to help each other out with their own maps. When those who are in charge of running the system are actively participating in it as individuals themselves then there are going to be problems.

Connections are too big of a driver in the current ranking process. Those with access to the people in charge are highly advantaged compared to those that do not. When getting hold of a BN is incredibly frustrating for some, while others can simply post a short message in a private discord server to get things rolling quickly I do not consider it a fair system.

your right that thats not fair. but theres no way to prevent some people simply having more contacts or connections with people as long as the system isnt entirely automated. hell in pretty much anything in life those who have the contacts are usually better off in some capacity. heres hoping the incentives for more activity amoung bn's in general make it easier for those frustrated people to get contact with bn's on account of them just being more active.

I like this change, and already can see some positive respond from mappers and modders I know. Hope we can get to details soon and try this scheme out. These days I'm not mapping or modding due to graduate school works, but this encourages people like me to think about if we get some time to do some thing to serve our mapping and modding community again.

But what you are suggesting doesn't exactly apply to what we currently have, Monstrata. If we were totally transparent about what we do today then we wouldn't call public voting on who is to lead our team into question based on the public not knowing for 100% of what we do. The transparency thing can be fixed though going forward - just depends on the timing of that vote then - really.

The tier split was a measure that was trialed and labeled as optional from our side so I am not too sad about seeing it go away. A probationary system itself seems all right, but i'm not sure how to detail it - i.e. determining how someone "fucked up" because then we would like need to have bad performance incurr actual punishment and thus would need to measure individual performance in some way which i don't know how to do in a scalable way yet.

I mean the other way suggested is just jinxing people based on vast majority vote within qat in which case i can already hear the accusations of being biased for kicking BN x in my inbox?

The reward/acknowledgement stuff was repeatedly asked for so no qualms there.

One idea for subdivisions working better was not doing this in a top down manner and just throwing people into teams because that's usually how teambuilding irl works - you get thrown somewhere and either get along or you dont. That is BNs choosing which subdivision they wish to be in (which would probably need like a "you can only change subdivisions once every 3 months so you don't troll the living hell out of everyone responsible for the scoring" which I could probably foresee happening).

As we've said multiple times the QAT are not discouraged from bubbling or qualifying maps as of right now. The formal authority for vetting qualified was revoked on Asymmetry so if you want to bring that back we also kind of go back to the community relying on the QAT to check all the maps they dont like

Which i have mixed feelings on personally.

I don't know how the future scope of what QAT does is different from what QAT currently does because almost all of what is listed is things that we do already and we don't actually do much more than that

Something something this rewards system is gonna fuck over non-std bns

maybe have an averaging system? Possibly concerning the total mods per mode, taking the amount done per capita to have a more balanced representation of which members are contributing more relative to their mode's activity.

delet hybrid bns

Last edited by NiftyAugust 27, 2017 at 11:32:04 PM UTC, edited 3 times in total.

QAT's checking beatmaps again is a step backward though yes. Current dq system is better in that regard.

But what do QAT"s even do at this point now? Perhaps now that we're pushing for more transparency it would be nice to actually get a breakdown of what you guys do? (Preferably more than a 1 sentence summary like on the osu blog xP)

I'd also like to ask (Nifty sniped me) about how exactly non-standard gamemodes will be handled, especially concerning the "Elite Nominator" title. There's a large chance that the other modes will naturally fall behind due to mapper/modder count and activity. Personally, it might be nice to separate standard from osu!catch, osu!mania, and osu!taiko--like how we treat BN applications now. This would create two (possibly) evenly matched groups of people with a "fairer playing ground". Also, with two elite nominators, we avoid the "this mode is easier because it has x BNs". Of course, if this has already been considered, feel free to ignore this comment.

Desperate-kun wrote:

Though, the reason why QATs stopped disqualifying maps on their own was mainly the will of peppy himself, so I don't see this change reverting unless you can actually convince him.

Also, I don't see the need for BNs to take part in the voting of a QAT leader - Simply because the BNs will never have the full insight on what each QAT is doing and how well they are doing it, it's going to be more of a popularity contest than anything.

Monstrata wrote:

If the QAT became more transparent then it would be good to at least have BN insight. This is a fault of the QAT's not being transparent enough imo, not a fault of us "not being qualified to vote for QAT's".

Mappers may not know what BN's are doing internally, but there are methods to finding out, and what BN's are doing are not nearly as secretive as what QAT's are doing in any regard. As well, we can also comment on the actions of QAT's based on what we know, or what they have been doing on the public-facing front.

For example, we know pishifat does a lot of videos and gives a lot of insight into mapping theory. We also know he qualifies a bunch of maps, sometimes with minimal modding if any (and I'm sure there are people who've come to question these "yolo ranks"), we also know he participates in or had participated in BN test creation and that he is involved in helping with the Ranking Criteria changes.

I've always questioned why QAT's needed to be so secretive in the first place. Why weren't BN test answers released? People can learn from them, especially the Part A answers (considering they are not private information as anyone who participated in the BN Test received the answer sheet).

So no, I disagree with Desp, I think BN's should be able to vote, but I believe they should also be given a better insight into the behind-the-scenes actions of QAT's. We shouldn't be barred from voting just because "we don't know".

Kinda agree with both here, as it is I don't think BNs should be weighing in on who a QAT team leader would be, but it's certainly true that there needs to be a lot more transparency or at least clarity on the part of the QAT.

MashaSG wrote:

Agree with the others ( Werbee and Kisses )

MashaSG wrote:

Absolute Zero wrote:

I'd also like to ask (Nifty sniped me) about how exactly non-standard gamemodes will be handled, especially concerning the "Elite Nominator" title. There's a large chance that the other modes will naturally fall behind due to mapper/modder count and activity. Personally, it might be nice to separate standard from osu!catch, osu!mania, and osu!taiko--like how we treat BN applications now. This would create two (possibly) evenly matched groups of people with a "fairer playing ground". Also, with two elite nominators, we avoid the "this mode is easier because it has x BNs". Of course, if this has already been considered, feel free to ignore this comment.

To expand on this idea,

I don't think putting standard in one group and the other modes in another group is a good idea because while they are all less active than standard, they aren't as active as one another, not even close iirc.

My suggestion is to have each mode receive their own elite nominator but at different intervals than standard.

So if Standard is every 6 months, mania could be every 10 months. Taiko every year and CTB ever 14 months as an example. These time scales might seem long and they might be but it's just an example. This is the best way I can think of doing this without having the modes directly compete against one another.

Possible issues: It requires BNs to be active for a longer period of time in less active modes to receive a title (but the trade off is less competition) Hybrid BNs get shafted

The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts.

'Successful qualifications' need to go. There's only so many maps that deserve to be qualified, so when those maps get qualified, what maps are the bns going to look at? They might resort to qualifying unfitting maps. Qualtiy is a subjective term, but Modding activity is more accurate because mods can be analyzed for proper reasoning despite how much of the mod was applied, so I think this should be kept. One form of activity I'd like to add is participation in events. As in, bns who become judges of tournaments receive 'extra credit' for example.

Second, it's about the bn awards. I'm glad the staff have noticed motivation as an issue, but I still question it's effectiveness.

I feel bns & qat should be paid for their activity. Whether it be actual money or osu supporter, they need some form of consistent payment. A tag is cool, but then what's after that? Having a monthly payment or award would encourage them to stay active. The bns do work that a game developer would make money off of, so I think this is where they lose motivation.

Litharrale wrote:

Absolute Zero wrote:

I'd also like to ask (Nifty sniped me) about how exactly non-standard gamemodes will be handled, especially concerning the "Elite Nominator" title. There's a large chance that the other modes will naturally fall behind due to mapper/modder count and activity. Personally, it might be nice to separate standard from osu!catch, osu!mania, and osu!taiko--like how we treat BN applications now. This would create two (possibly) evenly matched groups of people with a "fairer playing ground". Also, with two elite nominators, we avoid the "this mode is easier because it has x BNs". Of course, if this has already been considered, feel free to ignore this comment.

To expand on this idea,

I don't think putting standard in one group and the other modes in another group is a good idea because while they are all less active than standard, they aren't as active as one another, not even close iirc.

My suggestion is to have each mode receive their own elite nominator but at different intervals than standard.

So if Standard is every 6 months, mania could be every 10 months. Taiko every year and CTB ever 14 months as an example. These time scales might seem long and they might be but it's just an example. This is the best way I can think of doing this without having the modes directly compete against one another.

Possible issues: It requires BNs to be active for a longer period of time in less active modes to receive a title (but the trade off is less competition) Hybrid BNs get shafted

this doesn't workat allmonstrata bubbled 6-7 sets yesterdaythe most active ctb bns may icon 6-7 sets per month (usually less)no matter what time scale is used, different modes can't be compared at any level because of the sheer difference in amount of mapselite nominator needs to be mode exclusive or any non-std bns will have literally no chance at the title

Desperate-kun wrote:

Also, I don't see the need for BNs to take part in the voting of a QAT leader - Simply because the BNs will never have the full insight on what each QAT is doing and how well they are doing it, it's going to be more of a popularity contest than anything.

Well, in any social environment, popularity is a strong value, even for good as for evil, I think that before hinder BN vote for QAT leader, let's try it, and if this does not work (as did not work in 2014 with newBATs), then it will be limited to elite nominators or so...

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I'm only worry about Beatmap Nominator rewards.

The most active BN member every 6 months as determined by a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity will receive the "Elite Nominator" title permanently, and 6 months of osu! supporter, plus 3 months that they may gift to any of their friends.

It is really cool and I'm very happy that BNs finally get recognition for their hard work! but...If the measure to get the "Elite Nominator" title is only how many mods they did, this will be abused. I mean, some maps are more easy to mod (like short songs), so think in a way to avoid an eventual abuse is something that worry me :S

I want to the most helpful and nice BNs to get the Elite Nominator title, but not to the lazy who made the minimum to get a title ^^U

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Okorin wrote:

The tier split was a measure that was trialed and labeled as optional from our side so I am not too sad about seeing it go away. A probationary system itself seems all right, but i'm not sure how to detail it - i.e. determining how someone "fucked up" because then we would like need to have bad performance incurr actual punishment and thus would need to measure individual performance in some way which i don't know how to do in a scalable way yet.

It is a very important question.Clear rules are important to avoid unnecessary drama!

Okorin wrote:

The tier split was a measure that was trialed and labeled as optional from our side so I am not too sad about seeing it go away. A probationary system itself seems all right, but i'm not sure how to detail it - i.e. determining how someone "fucked up" because then we would like need to have bad performance incurr actual punishment and thus would need to measure individual performance in some way which i don't know how to do in a scalable way yet.

Well, you could do it based on whether they get striked in that time (just from a behavior point of view). I think at this point, the idea of tiers changing the quality of ranked should probably be abandoned since it clearly didn't work... so using a probationary period to make sure the new guy doesn't dick around and do dumb shit would make sense before promoting him to a full BN.

i agree with what weber said about the elite nominator title being handed out more regularly, 6 months is a bit long so i would suggest 4 month intervals maybe. If this is getting handed out seperately per gamemode i would suggest keeping it at 6 months for the modes with less BNs though.

I also feel like the BNG having an influence on choosing the QAT leader would be a good idea, since it would give them a little bit more control and avoid ending up with someone in charge who is disliked by most of the people they are in charge of. I feel like it's only fair to also give the BNs a vote, seeing as the person ending up in charge will ultimately be responsible for not just the QAT, but also many decisions regarding the BNG. I still somewhat agree with desperate-kun though, while this could be fixed by making the QAT more transparent a more immeriate solution would be weighting votes, so that the total weight of all BN votes = the total weight of QAT votes, thus not resulting in the people who know most being outnumbered and outweighted by a larger group with less information on the matter.

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-- so I burned him to death.